Why Can I Hear Quiet Sounds But Not my Granddaughter’s Voice?

Hearing loss isn’t simply about volume, it’s about pitch. It’s conceivable you have some amount of high-frequency hearing loss if you can comprehend what the men in the room are saying but you can’t hear women and children. This is a very prevalent type of hearing loss so you’re not alone.

Warning Signs of High-Frequency Hearing Loss

With high-frequency hearing loss, you may still be able to register the volume of a woman’s voice or a child’s voice, but consonant sounds that make conversations easy to understand, get muddled. Usually the most difficult to differentiate are consonant sounds such as ch, th, t, soft s, c, sh, k, f, and h. Even though a woman or a child is not mumbling, it might sound that way. Comprehending a child’s joke or a family member’s question about dinner plans becomes very difficult because you have lost the ability to distinguish these sounds. This can lead to frustration, despair and social isolation from your circle of friends and family.

Other sounds within the high-frequency hearing loss range (2000 Hz) are missed by people with this condition. This includes high musical notes, birds chirping, and squeaks or whistles. Even at low volumes a man’s voice, thunder, and bass musical notes, might be fairly easy to detect.

Reasons For High-Frequency Hearing Loss

As the most common type of hearing loss, high-frequency hearing loss can sneak up on people as they grow older, frequently imperceptibly at first. high-frequency hearing loss can be induced by other things in addition to aging like specific medical problems like cardiovascular disease, excessive noise exposure, and several medications.

These situations all harm to the tiny, hair-like sensory cells inside the cochlea. Sound input is received by these little cells and delivered to the brain for processing. The higher pitched sounds are often the first to be hard to understand because the high-frequency cells get damaged more easily than the lower pitched cells.

How to Avoid High-Frequency Hearing Loss

Even though you can’t stop your ears from aging, there are many steps you can take to prevent or at least slow the advancement of high-frequency hearing loss. Including these:

Quieter things are more ideal. Find noise ratings on appliances and choose the quietest models. And don’t be reluctant to ask the restaurant manager to turn the music down if it’s hard to hear your dinner companions.

Never utilizing a swab (or other small objects) to get rid of ear wax. This can push old ear wax into your ear canal and blunt your capacity to hear. Gently wash out excessive earwax with a washcloth after you shower, or ask your hearing professional about different ear irrigation techniques for eliminating earwax without damaging your hearing.

If you take any medication, ask your doctor if it has any impact on hearing. high-frequency hearing loss can be triggered by at least 200 different kinds of medications. Your hearing can even be harmed by too much aspirin. consult your doctor to find out if there are choices less likely to harm your hearing. Stay in close contact with your hearing health care provider if you can’t abstain from taking a particular medication. Further hearing loss can be avoided by treatment.

Using hearing protection in noisy situations.A sure indication that your ears might be getting damaged is if you have to shout to be heard in a noisy location. Some instances of occasions when wearing ear-plugs are live music concerts, motorcycles revving, running power tools, and a loud stereo. Noise-canceling headphones are also a good alternative in certain scenarios, but may not fit inside your pocket as easily as ear-plugs.

Treatment For High-Frequency Hearing Loss

Hearing aids are presently the most effective method for treating high-frequency hearing loss. And since this is the most common type of hearing loss, there are various different designs a person can choose from. So that they are crisper to the user, hearing aids can boost high pitched sounds. Many models are configurable and your hearing care expert can help fine-tune them to enhance your ability to hear those sounds at the right level, immediately addressing the level and extent of the hearing loss. Some hearing aids can be controlled by your phone and include directional microphones for fine-tuning in circumstances such as business meetings, restaurant dinners, talking on the phone or listening to children.

Make an appointment for a hearing test if you suspect you might have high-frequency hearing loss. If you want to improve your ability to hear your grandchild’s priceless one-liner, chances are there are individually tailored answers for you.